Donald Glover Joins Upcoming Han Solo Film as Young Lando Calrissian

Today Lucasfilm announced that Donald Glover will be joining the cast of the upcoming 2018 Han Solo stand-alone film as a young Lando Calrissian. The iconic role was portrayed in the original Star Wars trilogy by Billy Dee Williams.

We first met the character as the administrator of Cloud City on the planet Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back. The new film will focus on Lando’s earlier years and audiences will see the backstory between him and the owner of the Millennium Falcon that was hinted at in Empire.

Per the press release:

This new film depicts Lando in his formative years as a scoundrel on the rise in the galaxy’s underworld — years before the events involving Han, Leia, and Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and his rise to Rebel hero in Return of the Jedi.

Glover (The Martian, Atlanta) joins Alden Ehrenreich (Beautiful Creatures, Hail, Ceasar!) who had been cast as Han Solo a few months ago. The film will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street).

“We’re so lucky to have an artist as talented as Donald join us,” said Lord and Miller. “These are big shoes to fill, and an even bigger cape, and this one fits him perfectly, which will save us money on alterations. Also, we’d like to publicly apologize to Donald for ruining Comic-Con for him forever.”